He was bitter, unhappy, and who could blame him?
Everyone in the world who had loved him, or at the very least, claimed to, was dead. His name had been smeared over the wizarding world like so much mud, and instead of grief, what he felt was shame.
And then, to add insult to injury, he'd been forced to come here—to Hogwarts.
"I don't want to be here," Draco Malfoy said, crossing his arms over his chest and casting his eyes away from his Head of House—the man who had killed his father.
"I'm afraid you have no choice," Severus said, templing his fingers together and ignoring the roaring headache that had cropped up when Draco had been brought to him. He'd resisted the responsibility, knowing full well that the boy wouldn't be able to think of anything but his father's demise, and who had been reponsible for it.
But instead of treating Severus with hate, or even distaste, the young man had thrown himself into the chair across from the Potion Master's and proceeded, in his emotional turmoil, behave like a ten-year-old.
Taking a deep breath, Severus prepared to speak, only to be cut off by the sullen youth across from him.
"If you're about to apologize, you may as well can it," Draco said, his voice only fractionally holding its harshness. "I know you're not sorry for killing him, and if you were sorry, I wouldn't be sitting here."
"Explain yourself."
"He deserved it, didn't he?" Draco sat up straight in his chair, feeling clear for the first time since his world had come crashing down around his ears. When all he got from Severus was a wide-eyed look of shock, he scoffed openly. "Oh, come off it. You think I didn't know? I lived with the man for nearly twenty years. He treated my mother like little more than a house elf, and me? Well, I was to be perfect, and when perfection was lacking, I was to be disciplined." He cast his eyes to the side then, disgusted with himself for the outburst.
But one more thing had to be said, the one thing that had been weighing him down more than anything, compiling the shame into something personal, something tangible.
"He killed my mother, did you know that?" Draco raised his silvery eyes to Severus's and smirked, masking the pain he felt for the only family he'd really had. "He killed my mother, and for that alone, I'd have done exactly what you did."
They sat in silence for long moments, Severus shocked at Draco's knowledge of his father's actions on the last night of his life, Draco grimly pleased at how easily he'd managed to strike Severus speechless.
Finally, at a total loss for anything else to say, Severus asked the young Slytherin if he wanted to take classes.
That, too, brought derision as the last living Malfoy rolled his eyes. "It hardly stands to reason that I would very well want to take classes, since I don't want to be here at all. But since it seems I have no choice in that particular matter, I believe I will take classes, if only to have something to do in this great, hulking prison."
"Then we'll put you in classes," Severus said, grasping at straws and feeling an absurd sense of relief that the boy had at least agreed to something.
But Draco's next words swept the relief away and placed it with a sinking feeling, heartsick and helpless.
"I shouldn't be in your class."
And it was no more than the truth, no matter how much it stung. Who would want to be taught by the man who had made them an orphan?
Really, Severus thought, who wanted him to teach at all?
"Then you will not be in my class."
Draco stood and swept to the doorway, the regality he had come by in birth still as strong as ever. One hand on the door's bulky latch, he bowed his head slightly, the bright hair shimmering in the gloom. "I didn't say I didn't want to, Professor. Only that I shouldn't. A Malfoy always thinks about appearances." He looked over his shoulder then, his lips drawn into a smirk that was meant to defend himself, to protect what lay beneath. "So to hell with appearances."